The Decline of Advocacy

Reasoned debate is a foundation of our culture, Dalrymple says at Taki’s Magazine. But at the moment, neither Donald Trump nor his detractors seem much interested in it.

Many people nevertheless feel that, with the advent of Mr. Trump to the presidency, we have entered a new age of post-truthfulness and irrationality, but if this is such an age (and it is worth remembering that politics has never been entirely a disinterested inquiry after truth), Mr. Trump is a response to it rather than its originator. For what is political correctness other than an attempt to close down or preclude disinterested inquiry after truth on important selected subjects?